[London,] 24 March 1870

I enclose a letter from the Russian colony in Geneva. We have admitted them and I have accepted their commission to be their representative in the General Council and have also sent them a short reply (official, with a private letter as well) and given them permission to publish it in their paper. A funny position for me to be functioning as the representative of young Russia! A man never knows what he may come to or what strange fellowship he may have to submit to. In the official reply I praise Flerovsky and emphasise the fact that the chief task of the Russian section is to work for Poland (i.e., to free Europe from Russia as a neighbour). I thought it safer to say nothing about Bakunin, either in the public or in the confidential letter. But what I will never forgive these fellows is that they turn me into a "vénérable." They obviously think I am between eighty and a hundred years old.